The Big East has released the first part of the conference schedule and the St. John’s basketball program will open up against Connecticut.
Ahead of Big East Media Day, the Big East Conference released the December slate of games.
The league has been talking about getting in around four league games prior to the start of the new year and the schedule release confirms the conference’s ambition.
St. John’s will open up its conference year against the Connecticut Huskies on the road on December 11.
The Red Storm will be the ones to officially welcome back the Huskies to the Big East after a seven-year absence playing in the American Athletic Conference.
St. John’s last matchup against UConn was a 71-65 win at Madison Square Garden on February 6, 2013.
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The rest of the December schedule will have the Red Storm travel to Butler on December 14, host Creighton on December 17 and see Georgetown potentially play at Carnesseca Arena on December 20 as well.
It’s quite a tough stretch to start out the conference portion of the season for the Red Storm.
The non-conference portion of the schedule for the Red Storm will have the Johnnies open up their season on November 25 with an opponent to be determined that will be included in their multi-team event. Mike Anderson‘s team will then have a quick turnaround playing La Salle on the following day.
St. John’s then travels to the Mohegan Sun Arena to play Boston College on November 30, followed by a meeting on the road with Texas Tech on December 3rd.
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The Red Storm will return to Queens to face Sacred Heart on December 6 and Fordham two days later on December 8 before heading into conference play.
The rest of the conference schedule will be revealed at a later date.
St. John’s will look to prove the preseason polls wrong and finish higher than the predicted No. 9 spot in the conference this season.
The Johnnies will be led by Rasheem Dunn, Julian Champagnie, and Greg Williams Jr. as well as a five-man recruiting class led by Posh Alexander, Vince Cole, and graduate transfer Arnaldo Toro.